


Pause; Review

by Simply8Steps



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, More Thoughts on Life and Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 10:20:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11079582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Simply8Steps/pseuds/Simply8Steps
Summary: Start, stop and rewind. Medbay and illness plays catalyst to unwinding thoughts.





	Pause; Review

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on 10/10/2010 (Wow, I just realized this!) This was uhmm... written quite a while back during an... interesting time for me.

_On her first day of treatment, she learned the importance of breathing in deeply (lungs compressed and air expired afterwards) without thought or sense of smell. Cottle simply smiled grimly. “You’re going to need distraction.”_  
  
_“I know, but knowing my luck, it won’t be the good kind.”_  
  
_He lets out a gruff cough (laugh). “You never know.”_  


* * *

  
“Did you know that there were times that I almost prayed to hate you? It would have made so many things easier.”  
  
She turned towards him, her legs tucked in and the fringes of her wig brushing down. Her eyes glittered in amusement and in understanding for the conundrum of human emotions. And there it was again, human emotions. “Hmm… it might have made some things easier, but it would have made many things harder as well.”  
  
Bill glanced at her from the report in hand.  
  
“It would have made working together difficult and intolerable first of all.”  
  
He snorted. “I work perfectly well with Zarek.”  
  
It was her turn to snort. “Yes, of _course_. I am waiting for the day you two go at it. I’ll referee.”  
  
“You’d be rooting for me of course.”  
  
“Hmm…” Her smile was small, “Maybe.”  
  
The seriousness of the sentiment earlier expressed washed to the waysides, put away for those secret contemplations in a rack or on a couch, for the tense doubts expressed in nightmares, and the worries that love maybe wasn’t all that was needed for them to survive.  
  
But at least the words comforted.  
  
You can start and stop and just never finish.  


* * *

  
_Open. Attach. Pump._  
  
_Insert the cannula. Retract and withdraw the needle. Catheter – medically taped to place._  
  
_On her third treatment, she began to believe that Ishay may not be ingenious about veins after all. Certainly, she was better than some of the others, but when she pumped the saline flush through the short connection, a jolt of pain made her aware that this was a vein that she hopes becomes unusable for IV infusions. The thin vein barely behind the skin pulses uncomfortably with each movement of the poison that is soon attached._  
  
_“Sorry – but it’s probably better if I don’t change that one just now. You’ll need all the veins you have if you don’t want that central line.” (The amount of time she’ll be alive is assumed.) “Just keep that arm straight, don’t move, and rest a bit if you can. There’s a small kidney dish here, just in case.”_  
  
_Maybe not so ‘not ingenious’ after all._  
  
_“Thank you.”_  


* * *

  
She laid there and could only think. She could almost ignore the IV boring a hole into her arm, almost ignore the dripping of the clear poison into her IV, her arm and the cool burning that followed in its path. The bandages were like tape that left behind reminders in the form of oddly-shaped bruises, drawing up the marks left behind by the IV needles themselves… half-moon blood clots.  
  
She had to remain strong however (she drills this into herself, sweeps her mind clean of any other thoughts), even at her weakest, in front of all, except for him, who read such wonderful words to her. And she _lived_ , lived for short moments outside of time through his words and his voice. Gone was simple existence, and in its place was a fool’s paradise.  
  
She felt the wave of nausea wash over her… struggled up from the spinning bed to hang onto the IV stand to stumble towards the head, glad that it was only her scarf this time. Hardly able to stand as she retched into the toilet with a swirl of blood from the nosebleed… the swirl of dirty colors of a half-eaten lunch, and the world listed to its side again, even as she washed her face with cold water, wiping down the results of dried membranes and a sensitive gastrointestinal system.  
  
She was tired… Who was she kidding? She was exhausted, and the Quorum was a bunch of children that still needed to be schooled every now and then with Zarek as the wonderful class clown to incite them and a Lee Adama, full of flexible potential with his seemingly immalleable moral compass, under wing; whose? She wasn’t sure anymore. Really. She would give anything to be able to stand and walk without support and without the room spinning to throw her off her feet. _Frakkin’ floor. Frakkin’ inner ear and cerebellar impulses._ Her biology professor would be disappointed that she remembered first semester terms in such context.  
  
As she pulled herself back onto her own uniform, sterile bed, she fought the pounding in her head and turned toward the documents that Tory had provided. Much more appealing was the copy of _Searider Falcon_ that Bill had left atop the pile. She imagines her eyes feasting on the text until she over-indulged and grew nauseous, eyes, instead, the thin trail created by the smaller needles that had drawn blood from her already pale arm... The tiny pinpricks eventually built up over time to form the mini-map to, hopefully, some sort of salvation.  
  
He probably doesn’t know how much hope he provides her by just reading. That simple act helps her so deeply when she is left alone too long with her thoughts and questions, when she watches the numbers on her whiteboard continually fall, and here they are, the _people_ , still ripping each other apart when they could least afford it. It was idiotic really, and yet, she knows their fears and tries to run away just as badly.  


* * *

  
_On her fifth treatment, she begins to think of Cylons again (not that she has ever stopped exactly), of sickness, of Hera, and the future. She thinks so much that she dreams (envisions) it again and again, through the long day and the longer night._  
  
_It is a good thing that she had learned how not to scream._  
  
_When the nurse from the graveyard shift comes to check her vitals she startles awake with a whisper: “They’re coming.”_  
  
_Later the nurse will tell the doctor, he’ll worry but refuse to wake her up again. She gets about as much sleep as any other patient in sick bay. Not very much (consistent) at all._  
  
_Later, he’ll ask her, and her eyes will turn to him confused._  


* * *

  
The first time Laura sees Natalie in sickbay, she is glad that she has the wig on.  
  
“Hello, Madam President.”  
  
“Hello… Natalie.”  
  
The marine guards at her side noticeably shifts their guns uncomfortably, but Laura catches their eyes. _Everything is fine._  
  
“Your medical personnel has requested an inspection of our own to ensure that nothing may… endanger either parties.”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
Natalie’s eyes wandered to her wig. “And I hope you are doing well today as well.”  
  
Besides the slight narrowing of her eyes, her slight smile stays in place. “Yes, thank you. I hope everything goes well with… your check as well.”  
  
She understands diplomacy (and also how to frak it up – for better or worse), but this is just… _awkward_. Friend or enemy, ally or foe… and all she can think about is that she is in sickbay talking to someone who may or may not want to believe in the idea of death and everything that may come after but may face mortality soon anyway. A similarity. Oh wonders! (Her sarcasm was clearly coming out this treatment, hence it may or may not be a good thing that Cottle is delayed and she has asked Natalie to sit and talk.)  


* * *

  
_During her seventh treatment, there was little more than a revelation as she laid there to think. If she was dying but not a dying leader. Or if she had been the dying leader but not since her cure. If she still were the dying leader but would fail. If she was going to die failing her people or live to see her failure. If revelation and visions are little more than drug-induced visions or the product of a wanting mind (wanting so much). If they were little more than the truth or tricks of divine beings (being?)._  
  
_If she were dying, she was dying, she is dying…_  
  
_If she was living for the people… or is she living for herself?_  
  
_If she were living for some people, for some memories, have not lived for a while?_  
  
_She loved? She loves? She loves them? (And sometimes hates them?)_  
  
_During her seventh treatment her doubts finally begin to win, and she cries quietly because she wants to be certain for once, again. Certain of something or someone._  
  
_She prays for faith. For ever after. For belief and someone else’s belief. Then she stops praying and just holds on._  


* * *

  
She felt cold in the dark.  
  
Earth was a soulless, grey thing in the middle of nothing, because that’s what they’re hopes and dreams have come to.  
  
She felt disjointed. A figure worn down until she was completely blurred.  
  
And the person she hopes to find here is lost in a labyrinth of stones wet with tears, dank with despair, awashed with a sickening, cloying liquid that shone in the moon before dissipating into air rapidly. (If it were possible to accuse objects of being cowards, she would accuse alcohol).  
  
She also wishes for a thesaurus… the words are still not suitable.  
  
She wallowed, and it did not suit her. She had made her choices. They all had.  
  
Dashed upon the rocks as they were, she wondered about those strange words which were marked by return: rejuvenation, rehabilitation, revitalization… It would seem that “revelation” and “regret” had no place there.  
  
So she stretched, stretched to reach and retrieve the shattered and scattered pieces of a soul no longer whole (she paid the price willingly… humanity owned what she no longer had). There was no time, and all she could do was gather herself for more (and maybe he’s the only one who has bothered to pick up the pieces that she has left scattered behind; always the true believer, he wants to believe in her soul). Whatever it may be, but (his fingers slowly encircle the bracelet on her wrist, questing for the soft skin exposed by the space between metal and flesh, a testament to her treatments) at least, they still had something (-one). Right? (But first she needs to run – run out of her skin, run away and run to.)  
  
And when she shakes, she begins to shake her doubts off. Her choices are still her own. Others, still others. (She is not excusing but shoring up for survival.)  
  
All those people.  
  
She can’t help but wander the lost hallways. The opera house is dark.  


* * *

  
_On her last day (indefinable), she finds peace. And life._  


* * *

  
Bill Adama sits on the hillside. He remembers both the good and the bad and everything in between. He sees her smile on the horizon.  


* * *

  
_Laura Roslin sits at the side of a lake and waits. She talks to lost family and lost friends – about the good and the bad and the in between._  
  
_It feels good to wait after all the rushing, to have all the time in the world to stop and remember._

 

  
_**Fine.** _


End file.
